Craft beer certainly has a large and passionate fan base with drinkers appreciating a product that is locally made, produced in small batches to high quality standards and of course, the sheer variety and multitude of flavors on offer. Others dismiss it as an over-expensive fad, jam-packed with brews with silly names that are beloved by snobby hipsters and annoying hop connoisseurs. No matter where you stand on craft beer, one fact is clear: the brewing revolution has turned into an unexpected economic success story.
Despite the fact that the U.S. beer market has been controlled by a few powerful and select players for years, small brewers have still turned it upside-down over the past decade. That's also happened in spite of the behemoths snapping up their smaller craft competitors, something that started back in 2011 when Anheuser-Busch InBev purchased Goose Island. The expansion in craft brewing has resulted in the revitalization of neighborhoods, increasing the levels of variety on offer, more innovation, but perhaps most importantly, jobs.
According to the Brewer's Association, 1,460 breweries were operational in the U.S. in 2006 and that number had increased sharply to 5,301 by 2016. Alongside that astonishing pace of growth, the number of brewery workers grew 120 percent between 2008 and 2016. As can be seen from the following infographic which was created using Bureau of Labor Statistics data, 26,274 workers were employed at U.S. breweries in 2007. Ten years later, that number exploded, reaching 69,359. Despite a slowdown in sales, small and independent breweries still contributed $67.8 billion to the U.S. economy in 2016.
*Click below to enlarge (charted by Statista)
